Farewell to the Myth of the Noble Savage

By

Matt Ridley

Jan. 25, 2013 9:23 p.m. ET

A war within anthropology over the causes of war itself seems to be reaching resolution. The great ethnographer of the gardener-hunter Yanomamo Indians of Venezuela, Napoleon Chagnon, has long been battling colleagues over whether men in prestate societies go to war over protein or women. Next month he'll publish a memoir, "Noble Savages," detailing (as the subtitle puts it) "My Life Among Two Dangerous Tribes—the Yanomamo and the Anthropologists." This is a good time to look back at how his argument has...